The Nekromancer - 22. Chapter 22

'Careful Anya… careful…'

'You want me to be careful, shut the hells up…'

The werewolf's hand slid over a counter, knocking off a pair of ink vials. The thick glass fell into her other hand as she ducked, one laying on the floor as Anya stowed her prize.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Jakun exclaimed as the shop owner hurried over.

He stooped down, picking up the fallen vial and handing it to the skeleton.

"Wasn't there a vial of red ink too?" the skeleton asked in a clattering voice.

"No? I only saw one fall…"

"Tch, such disrespect. I should have your head slave."

"My apologies," Jakun said, bowing low.

He backed away, the skeleton glowering as he and Anya made their escape.

"Explain to me why we went through all that again?" the cat demanded, ducking into an alley.

"We have three scrolls. None of the spells on them are in either spellbook. If we write them down, we rewrite the scroll later and we can sell the copy. This is just… an advance on our payment. We can always come back later," Anya said, handing Jakun the ink.

Sighing, the cat tucked it into his clothing, Anya vanishing into his head once more.

"Amnor Sen wouldn't approve-"

'Amnor Sen left us here to die,' the werewolf snapped. 'He stole our book, left us with vague promises, and galloped off into the sunrise. Now, are you going to the Ebon Mausoleum or not?'

'We could probably find a quill somewhere else. I don't want to go in there,' Jakun shivered.

'Fine. Go ask an inn. They should have one,' Anya sighed.

The amurrun hurried through the alleys, his nose picking out their earlier travelling through the city. It took a bit, but finally, Jakun was in the tavern he'd slept in the day before.

"You're back? I thought you all left the city," the bartender grumbled.

"No, my… master... left me behind to do a little more shopping. I was just wondering if you have a pen I could borrow? I promise, I'll return it in an hour or two," Jakun said.

"Sure, but you aren't going anywhere with it," the man grunted, handing a large quill to the cat.

He motioned to a table.

"Can I get you anything to drink?"

"No sir, but maybe later tonight."

The catfolk sat at the table, summoning the necromantic spellbook. The whimpering pages were a strange comfort, showing him that others suffered too. Jakun was not alone, even if he often felt that he was. Even Anya hadn't suffered as he had. Her life had been full of hunting and killing, her death a quick silver arrow to the head, even if it was coupled with a fire lapping around her legs.

Opening the stolen vial, he searched for his cleaning spell, the pages of the book sighing sadly as he passed them.

"What are you doing?" Anya demanded, appearing in the seat across from him.

"Making a cleaning scroll. It is useful, Jeremy said so."

"Well, yeah, but there are more useful things. What about that one dark spell we found this morning? Imagine if a vampire used it."

Jakun thought for a moment, before nodding.

"Yeah… I suppose that would work. But where are we going to find a vampire to buy it?"

"The moroi who works here might be interested," Anya said, motioning toward the waitress who was busy with a customer.

"She's not burning up? There's sunlight coming through the window," Jakun frowned.

Anya shrugged.

"I think as long as she doesn't go into direct sunlight, she won't be burned. It's coming through a window, so… that's not direct, I guess."

"Magic is weird…" Jakun sighed, staring down at his book.

"Still, the spell should allow her to go outside. That's the important part," Anya said. "She'd pay for that, right?"

"I guess…"

He began looking through the pages, finding the spell. The scratching of his quill filled the room, ink flowing in clear Osirian lettering that clearly spelled out just how to activate the scroll.

Every word of the spell was double checked by Anya, her voice quietly translating the Elven lettering. It had never been Jakun's best language, but he knew enough to scrape by. Seeing it in the twisting code of magic made it difficult to decipher, but together, he and Anya figured it out, and two hours later, they had it written down.

Letting the scroll dry, Jakun opened his book to an empty page.

"We need to get that ritual down before we forget," he said.

"Agreed. There are certain parts you could ignore. The sacrifice of love, that was already done. And the biggest part is figuring out how to separate your soul from your body. I think this book might be useful for that actually. It is stealing your soul using nothing but your blood. Maybe you won't need your true name, if you even have one."

"So, we went through all that, and you want to ignore it?" Jakun frowned.

"Ignore, no. Personalize, yes," Anya said. "Look, Ivris killed himself one way. I don't think he has a soul anymore; he's just… undead. But we could put your soul in a safe place. Hells, we could probably get Amnor Sen to help us still."

"How? Tell him, oh, I need a box to stuff my soul in so I can be dead and not dead? He'd kill us."

"Unless we told him it was a memorial to Aofe," Anya pointed out. "We could make it a box full of memories, and slip your soul into it later.

"It's an idea. But what about you? What will happen to you if I become undying?"

"I would still be interested in keeping you on the right track. So… barring some colossal mishap, I'd be hanging around," Anya assured him.

"Eventually you'll leave though, right? I need to plan for that."

"Well, yeah, eventually I'll want to pass on, but until that happens, I'll be here to bug you," the werewolf smirked.

"Sounds like a plan to me. Let's get writing…"